


quand tu te réveilleras

by CommanderEivlys



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Character Development, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderEivlys/pseuds/CommanderEivlys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He quickly realized that despite his height, his presence often went unnoticed. He was like a lamp in the back of a room, a quiet scent lingering in the air.<br/>Not to Reiner. Reiner never failed to notice him.<br/>(At first, at least.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	quand tu te réveilleras

**Author's Note:**

> I'd apologize except I am not sorry. 
> 
> Someone requested some Reiner/Braun after I did an analysis of their relationship in Chapter 47. The rest is history.

He’s always towered over others. Even as a toddler, he hovered above his comrades (or at least, he thinks he did. He doesn’t remember much, not even the scent of bread in their old house or the color of his mother’s eyes) and watched as they craned their necks to look at him.

He quickly realized that despite his height, his presence often went unnoticed. He was like a lamp in the back of a room, a quiet scent lingering in the air.

(A god observing the strange, sad creatures below him.)

Not to Reiner. Reiner never failed to notice him.

(At first, at least.)

 

He barely remembers that day. He remembers a vague sense of purpose, the thought that people were going to die like flies.

But really, it was like watching ants be crushed under one’s heal. You feel vague pity, if nothing else.

He remembers the screaming sometimes, and how annoying it was, and how he was hoping that the other two were all right.

(“We were just stupid kids who didn’t realize anything.”)

Perhaps he still is.

 

Annie is a strange girl with a funny nose and a terrifying scowl. That’s no reason to stop Reiner from trying to annoy her, however.

It annoys him. It annoys him, because usually Reiner is the one to tease him and he doesn’t want Reiner to stop noticing him. Reiner’s eyes on him and goofy smile (as well as the feeling of a wall crushing under his grip and the screams of thousands as they die) make him feel as though he is here, he’s present. He’s back on Earth.

He doesn’t tell Reiner though, but secretly he’s glad when that night, when the three have escaped the horror and are trying to sleep in an abandoned cave, Reiner takes his hand and makes him feel anchored.

(He never does tell Reiner much about what he feels, though. Because if he does, he’s afraid Reiner might grow impatient, angry, and decide not to pay attention anymore. And since he can’t bear the thought of that he grows even quieter as Reiner grows more vocal and noisy and present.)

 

The first kiss is clumsy, strange. Reiner’s teeth scrap against his own and he has to lean down and they try not to make too much noise to wake up the other boys. But suddenly he doesn’t feel so tall or insubstantial anymore. He feels very much present, and human.

(The feeling terrifies him, perhaps more than the thought of the Others finding out about what they’ve done and hurting both of them. No, not the kiss.)

 

They really are strange, these Others, these humans. He’s stopped feeling human now, even after the secondthirdfiftieth kiss from Reiner (not _with_ , Reiner is the one who kisses him and he lets him, feeling alive and present whenever Reiner touches him or pays him attention in any way), but he finds them interesting. Their arrogance, their ridiculousness, how hard they try. They pretend they’re going to fight but really, they are children who have no idea what they’re against. (He does. He’s the against in that sentence).

Only a few stand out. Yeager. Ymir. They know what it’s like. But Yeager is still as arrogant as the rest of them, perhaps more.

Still, if anyone one has a chance of finding out, it’s the angry boy.

Sometimes he thinks of what would happen if they did find out. Perhaps it’s why he tries to explain clumsily to Yeager, hoping for a scrap of mercy. He doesn’t think _I’m sorry_ , he thinks _Please don’t hurt me or Reiner, gods, please_.

 

(On the day Yeager _does_ find out, he starts crying helplessly and Yeager has no mercy at all. _Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt Reiner._

 But he does not apologize or feel sorry. He just wants them to go home.)

 

One day they have just finished training and he sits in the grass, gazing at clouds and waiting for Reiner to join him. It’s what they always do—sit there and Reiner talks about home while he closes his eyes and imagines it. Home, with Reiner, as it should be. He cannot wait for it. Then Reiner will kiss him and he will let him, feeling his hands hard against his skin (skin that exists only under his human form) branding him and anchoring him, making him exist, albeit as Reiner’s.

He waits. He waits some more. When the stars come out, he finally works up the courage to go back to the barracks.

Reiner is there, laughing, talking, alive and there and solid. He ruffles Yeager’s hair, jokes around with Kirstein, decides to have an arm wrestling contest with Ackerman. (She wins.)

Because he’s afraid, he waits for Reiner to come out himself. When he does, Reiner gives him a large, toothy grin, as though nothing were wrong with the world.

He does manage to ask him: “You were supposed to talk to me about home.”

Reiner hardens and he tries not to shrink under his gaze. “We’re going home, Bertholdt,” Reiner tells him and slaps his shoulder. “As soon as we’ve killed the Titans.”

Something in him dies and another wails in desperation, but Reiner moves away instead and leaves him in the shadows. He does not have the strength to call him back and ask him.

 

Later, in the barracks.

He touches Reiner’s hand hesitantly, waiting for Reiner to push him away or look at him quizzically, but instead Reiner takes his hand and holds it so tightly that he thinks the blood circulation might be cut.

“I didn’t remember,” Reiner whispers to him. He can see the tears flowing down the boy’s cheeks, the sobs that shouldn’t be wracking his body but are. “I don’t want to remember, any of it.”

 

One night, six months later.

“What have we done, Bertholdt? They didn’t deserve it. I want to go home now.”

 

One night, a year later.

 Reiner lets go of his hand and doesn’t take it the night after.

 

Reiner slips away from him, step by step, and he finds that he does not have the courage to hold him back. Instead he screams for him to stay, not to leave him alone.

Reiner’s never been good at listening.

 

He observes them all at Trost. The humans dying like slaughtered lambs, crying and begging as they’re eaten remorselessly. Even in his current form, he feels nothing but a vague pity and a desire for them to go home as soon as possible, so that Reiner can come back to him and he can exist again.

 

Reiner doesn’t follow the plan. They don’t go home.

(He should have stopped him, but he doesn’t want Reiner to go even further without him.)

 

“We’re all short-lived mass murderers, aren’t we? Who else would understand?”

( _You would_ , he wants to scream. _You always did. That’s why you kept me here, that’s why I didn’t disappear. Please, listen to me, hear me, stay with me. I’m scared. I want to go home. You_ are _my home._

He doesn’t scream it. He never tells Reiner.

And Reiner never listens.)

 

“Bertholdt,” Reiner breathes, tears falling from his eyes and falling on his face below. Reiner’s hands are gentler than they ever were. He barely feels them as they support his head, blood trickling down his throat. He exists now, here, for Reiner. It’s not sweet as he expected, it’s bitter and it hurts.

He doesn’t have a home anymore.

He cries as well, but he doesn’t sob like he did before. He’s not a child anymore.

The boy he loves weeps and brings his forehead to his. “Bertholdt. Stay with me.”

_But you didn’t._

It’s far too late for this, for both of them, but this time at least, the words do leave his mouth. And Reiner hears them.

He thinks of ants below him and how strange it is to have someone hovering over his own face. _Oh. So that’s how it feels._

By the time Reiner answers his words, he is long gone. And Reiner does not stay for long either.

 

Yeager keeps his promise about their deaths. Yet when he’s done, there’s no joy. Nothing but emptiness and broken hearts and the bodies of two boys turned gods turned far too human.

 


End file.
